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Chough visits the various stations and watchhouses, especially when the young are full-grown, 

 and hunts amongst the rubbish-heaps close to human habitations in search of food, and sometimes 

 ventures into inhabited places. They also for the same purpose search along the railway-track 

 for grain and bread-crumbs that may have fallen down. I once shot one that had been feeding 

 on the rice-grains out of a pilaff that had been thrown away." 



It is generally believed that the Ground-Chough never drinks, but Zarudny's observations 

 prove the contrary. He frequently saw them " drinking out of a sheep-trough near the station 

 Utsch-Adschi, and about four versts from the Peski Station there is a watchhouse inhabited by 

 two Persian labourers, and here these birds appeared every morning to drink out of a water-pot 

 placed by the door for the poultry. One of these men said that a Ground-Chough was killed there 

 by a hen, which objected to its drinking out of the pot. In early times before travellers passed 

 through the desert, and there were no wells, it is very possible that the bird did not obtain 

 water, and even now in more unfrequented places it is probable that it is able and does exist 

 without water. The Ground-Chough has but few enemies, chiefly because in the desert 

 predaceous animals are not numerous. Among these may be named, as found during the 

 summer season, the Caracal {Lynx caracal), the Large Buzzard (Buteo ferox), and the Karagan 

 (Vulpes, sp., nee Vulpes melanotis)." 



This bird appears to be an early breeder. Fedtchenko found nests containing eggs in the 

 eastern portion of the Kizil-Kum desert in April ; Bogdanoff states that Mr. Fedurin observed 

 young which had left the nest on the 23rd April; and Zarudny was informed that nests were 

 found near the stations Utsch-Adschi, Peski, and Repetek, containing from two to four eggs, in 

 the middle of February, and by the end of May the young were fully fledged. Zarudny himself 

 found more than thirty nests, four of which were placed in holes in the ground, two being in 

 old fox-holes, and all the rest in trees or bushes of the saxaul. One nest was built in a stack 

 of saxaul-wood close to a house, which was the only instance he knew of this bird nesting near 

 human habitations. Usually the nests were built on low trees from 1$ to 6 feet above the 

 ground, and mostly on the north or east side ; and, like that of the Common Jay, the nest of 

 this bird is generally small in comparison to the size of the bird, some being actually smaller 

 than the nest of the Grey Shrike. Mr. Zarudny, who figures two nests (Bull. Soc. Imp. Mosc. 

 1890, pi. v.), remarks that three of the nests he found had a canopy of twigs over them, as is 

 the case with Magpies' nests, but this roof is slighter than in the Magpies' nests. "Each nest," 

 he writes (Bull. Soc. Imp. Mosc. iii. p. 462), "is composed of two distinct portions, an outer and 

 an inner. The outer one consists of a coarse structure of twigs of the saxaul, djusgun 

 (Calligonum, sp.), kujau-sujuk (Ammodendron, sp.), and other desert plants. Sometimes this 

 outside portion is very large and much thicker than the inner portion, but at others it is so slight 

 and irregular that it seems to be only there on principle. The inner portion is close, dense, 

 and firmly constructed of the finest twigs, soft dead bents, and leaves of various grasses, chiefly, 

 however, of soft strips, which probably are from the bark of the saxaul or djusgun, for in the 

 saxaul-thickets there are always rotten trunks with ragged bark to be found. These strips are, 

 by the way, the most valued material for the construction of the nests of many other desert birds, 

 as, for instance, Lanius grirnmi, L. assimilis, Iduna languida, Scotocerca inquieta, &c. For 

 further material fine root-strips are used and the hair of hares and of a small fruit which is 



